Dejan Kovacevic, a lifelong Pittsburgher, is an award-winning sports columnist for Trib Total Media covering the Steelers, Penguins, Pirates, Pitt and, recently, his fourth Olympics in Sochi, Russia. He also appears on WPXI-TV's 'Subway Final Word’ and hosts a weekly show on TribLIVE Radio. For 2011, he was named one of the country's top four columnists by the AP Sports Editors. For 2012, he was named one of the country's top three columnists by the National Headliners. For 2013, he was named the state's top columnist by the Keystone Press Awards and top columnist in Western Pennsylvania by the Golden Quills.

Wandy did great last night. Grilli owes Neil Walker a cheeseburger for his diving save. After that, Grilli took care of business. Barmes hit a NICE ground rule double. McCutchen ended up with another steal. Marte was thrown out at second on his attempt. Good first win for the Bucs.

Anyone see Tanner Glass vs. Arron Asham? Glass did a good job of bruising Asham’s knuckles with his helmet. Also landed a body shot for good measure … here’s the link if you missed it:

In regards to the Trib article on Pirate minority ex-owner Jay Lustig…..Here lies one of the most absurd pieces I have ever read in regards to defending the Nutting Regime.
People wonder why myself (and others) have deemed this blog the propaganda headquarters for the Regime?
It’s because of scrolls such as this that makes it crystal clear…..With a Wheeling connection at the top of it.
Pure and utter hogwash.

For those who may be misreading Daq, I believe he is taking a swipe at Bucs Dugout’s Charlie Wilmoth, who he linked, rather than yesterday’s Trib column that extensively quoted Lustig.

I think Charlie is wrong.

But then I also think Daq is wrong.

To me, it is not about the money; it is about competence. Or the LACK THEREOF.

If the management team is as broken and ineffective as I think it is, that falls on the boss. Nutting.

Nutting hired them.

Nutting agreed to extend them.

Nutting still keeps them.

Teams have succeeded with low-ish payrolls.

But rarely with stooges running the team.

And compared to players, it wouldn’t take a ton of money to dramatically upgrade your management team. So maybe $2M spread among 3-5 guys? That gets you a 30+ backup infielder in today’s market. Think how much more effectively it could be spent on an, um, effective management team.

Think they won’t come to Pittsburgh?

1. Money talks.
2. There are only 30 of each of these jobs in the world, at the top of the baseball world of MLB. The more exclusive and more important number is: only about 2-5 are open each year.
3. Money talks.

This is not a defense of Nutting.

This is an attempt to move beyond the red herring of payroll or cheapness to discuss Nutting’s TRUE FAILING as an owner.

If I was pitching to Pedro Alvarez I would throw a good number of tailing fastballs. He can’t reach them. But I would make sure they tailed away…because if they drift back over the plate he will crush them.

– Another stinking early April day game. If you go, look to the two seats to your left. Then look to the two seats to your right. If you are there, the other four are empty. And we’re working, or whatever it is Thunder does all day, mostly missing it.

– Sanchez, Snider and Tabata are a combined 0-for-2013. Yeah. I know. Two games. McCutchen and Walker are each hitting .333. I’m sure by season’s end S-S-T will be hitting like All Stars and M-W will be at the Mendoza line. My REAL point: while we were arguing during spring training between Snider, Sanchez and Tabata (me included), were we fighting over Titanic deck chairs while we should have been dressing like women and heading to the lifeboats? (Maybe THAT’S what Thunder does all day).

– After all that whining, the Pirates have – so far – not hurt themselves with pitching this year. Now we get to the gulp and double-gulp parts of the rotation. But still. If I’m going to pounce on hitting after two games, that sword has to cut both ways. Pitching has been solid.

– I didn’t understand some of Hurdles moves last night. Three or four in particular. They ALL worked. Every one of the decisions I questioned. Worked.

I’m with Drew. Well, I mean I agree with Drew. The money gets to be an excuse, not the cause. Sure, it’s a factor, but it doesn’t explain 5 losing seasons in a row, 10 losing seasons in a row and certainly not 20 losing seasons in a row. Bad management, on the other hand, explains it.

Clint needs to keep both Gaby @ 1B and along came Jones in RF every day for now. Get your best sticks in there who have the potential to provide some pop. Let Snider or Scabata (with his new chiseled look) start once or twice a week max.

I am greedy. Or, I must be drinking the Kool Aid too much…20 losing years will do that. But, as Mad Turk says below…let’s set the goal high and then drop off some. Seriously, we saw what the 1 and 2 starters did on Monday and Wednesday. We expected that, but the real test begins today and then Friday and Saturday in L.A. against the powerful Dodgers.

That’s why I suggested that they HAD to play Engelland. Glass will fight, but is no deterent. And now that we see Depres playing important minutes, it is obvious he still has some “growing up” to do.

Incredibile that not only down 2 best Dmen and 3 of 6…it’s one from EVERY pairing, so the whole D is FUBAR. ADD that to Sid out, Geno NOT playing well and all the other forward line changes…..gonna take getting a couple of these guys back to reboot the system.

Don’t necessarily agree with Starkey but Pitt is getting a perfect storm of trouble. However, could the Trib buy the guy some writing lessons? He reads like some 8th grader’s essay for history class. See Spot run. Write Joe, write.

Let’s see what the Bucs record is after the trip to Brooklyn (aka LA) & Arizona. We’ll also have a chance to see how the back end of the rotation performs. The west coast has always been a challenge even when the Bucs had great teams way back when.

Last night’s Pirates win was a great example of what they will HAVE to do every night to stay relatively competitive. Great starting pitching, clutch hitting and solid bullpen work. Have to get all 3. They got 2 out of 3 first game and lost. They simply aren’t good enough in any one area to make up for an off night. Not consistently anyways. They will get the occasional shutout gem from AJ or Wandy, or the occasional two-homer game from Cutch.

The Penguins on the other hand are so talented they can afford to have the offense, defense or goal-tending take the night off and still win games consistently. Now if all three decide to practice their Jedi powers, spend most of the game staring at the puck in the hopes that it will jump from the opponents stick to their own..well…they will lose. And look stupid doing so.

It probably sounds silly after last nights outburst from the 3 guys they just traded for, but I still think the Gaborik trade is idiotic. Ryan Clowe isnt a guy who is going to score two a night all the time. Heck i would be surprised if he scored twice a week consistently.

I just dont get the thought process of prioritizing coaching over talent when its obvious that the coaching isn’t optimizing the talent they have. The Rangers are still going into each game bringing a knife to a gunfight. Now they have 3 more knives. Makes no sense to me.

Drew, it shows that success by GM’s in that situation is not as easy as you think.

The Twins couldn’t pick a successor who could replicate the success, even after he was there as an asst for all of it.

And the Twins replaced him because he rode the Twins to last place. Continuing failure.

This FO, like it or not, has shown progress. And if they get this team over the streak this year, they will be lauded in most national circles as an example of doing it the right way. But probably not lauded much here in Pittsburgh.

I am rooting for them to break the streak and compete for the division. Because that will make for delicious drama and irony, on top of the sweetness of winning.

(Yes! I think that’s 2 days in a row now… baseball season makes it easier to be the first FHCDD poster. But in all honesty I hope he turns these couple eggs around by Friday. It’d be nice to be a 1 seed. Maybe.)

Didn’t get to watch either game unfortunately. Glad to hear Wandy did well. I’m sure Tyler Kennedy sucked.

I am sure both Snider & Joggin Joe will get their opportunities this year – right now they are decent backups. But, in the meantime, let’s try something different – maybe Clint will get lucky with Sanchez @ 1B and Jones in RF.

NO team, regardless of payroll, can survive incompetence in the front office. The Mets and Cubs are obvious examples. What happened in Minnesota and Boston after Ryan and Epstein left make it even more clear the effect a GM can have. In some ways, in this age of video equipment and advance scouting, the GM is more important to the success of the team than the manager in the dugout. I know that will strike a lot of you as absurd (or hogwash, perhaps even balderdash) but if you look past your knee jerk reaction to the idea, it isn’t that difficult to justify.

I hate sounding like I’m trying to drive people from here to somewhere else, but I spent the last month writing my season preview about the economics of baseball. Mostly because I don’t know the minutia and intricacies of it the way a lot of bloggers do, and do know math and finance. But in my finding the two best run teams in all of baseball, financially speaking, were SF and ST Louis. Their spending and approach are impeccable and consistent. I know Nutting wants to run the Pirates as a business, and in theory there is nothing wrong with that. What he has to learn is the Business of BASEBALL.

The basic problem is that he needs “good baseball men” to help him do that. But when you run newspapers and resorts, how do you know what a “good baseball guy” looks and sounds like? It stands to reason that since he (Bob Nutting) doesn’t know how to run a ball club, he doesn’t know how to hire someone to do that for him either.

I wouldn’t throw him a fastball at all. Changeups and breaking stuff. He’s always out on his front foot. That’s okay tho. As with a lot of power hitters in the middle of the order, Pedro is going to have to jump on mistakes. He did it nicely on his single (and RBI) in Game 1.

You take the hand you’re dealt. I don’t think he can do worse at this point. If he goes out and hires inexperienced people again, who then hire more inexperienced people like the last time, then it could be bad, but I really don’t think he will try a do over of what didn’t work.

I think that when Nutting did his “investigation” after the Hoka Hey fiasco, he had to talk to several people around the sport…MLB folks etc. I still believe that he put feelers out there if he was going to do any replacement of his management team. He wanted to get an idea of some up and coming people in the sport. Maybe, maybe not…

Nice win last night — sort of perked up the optimist in me. Two good outings by the starters, McCutchen heroics at bat and in the field, a ground rule double by Barmes, and any my son-in-law is a Cubs fan. I forgive him on account of growing up there, but beating those guys makes conversations easier.

I’ll be out of town tonight and miss the NIT finals, but will have Gameday on the second screen today. Nice thing about having two monitors (and being your own boss.)

From the long discussion above. Something I remember from Usenet days (rec.sport.baseball):

Saw this in the write-up about the Pirates game last night, “McCutchen doubled to left, and Jones raced home to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead.”

I didn’t watch the game, but never in my life would I expect to hear the words “Jones” and “raced” in the same sentence.

Good for the Pirates getting the win. Should’ve been watching that game instead of the Pens. The next month is going to be really interesting for the Penguins. I sure am glad I’m not the one having to make lineup decisions every day with this roster. Somebody is going to be unhappy (and boy do I hope it is TK).

I think what bothers me the most is the continued power that folks from Bucs Dugout continue to gather.
It would be great if they had varied opinions, but this is a hard line Nutting propaganda ship that they are sailing.

If giving an opinion is spamming, we all have a problem on our hands.
I wouldn’t be the only one that isn’t allowed to post on Bucs Dugout.
So be it.
However, there are alot of Pirate fans that share similar opinions that are also left out or just don’t bother anymore.
Their opinions are spam?
Let’s face it, you don’t like their opinions, so you don’t want their opinions out there.
Anytime anyone wants to talk to me about this subject by email/twitter/phone…I’ve made myself available.
I spam nothing.
I state a very popular opinion with Pittsburgh Pirate fans.

But from my experience, its usually not a good sign when those “feelers” don’t result in action. Either means the position isn’t attractive to those who are qualified or there’s nobody qualified for the position.